Health Canada refuses to say who writes COVID-19 vaccine guidance for pregnant women
The agency brushes off concerns about its conflicting statements on the safety and efficacy of mRNA vaccines during pregnancy, leaning instead on 'trust us, we’re experts' conjecture.
Canada’s health agency claims to be committed to openness and transparency, but refuses to name a single person responsible for drafting and approving the government’s official statements on COVID-19 vaccines, especially guidance targeting pregnant and breastfeeding women.
What should have been a straightforward answer has instead become another exercise in bureaucratic secrecy thinly veiled in “trust us, we’re experts” language.
This latest controversy stems from a recent Order Paper Question in Parliament that asked Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to explain two conflicting positions on COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy.
An earlier government response plainly stated that vaccine product monographs are based solely on data submitted by manufacturers. It admitted that “the safety and efficacy of these vaccines in pregnant women have not yet been established,” and that “no indication for use in pregnant or lactating women was sought by the vaccine sponsors or authorized by Health Canada.”
Yet Health Canada’s current public guidance paints a very different picture.
The agency asserts that “vaccination is an important part of a healthy pregnancy,” even claiming that “evidence suggests COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy helps prevent infection and hospitalization in infants under six months of age.”
Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall asked the obvious question: how can both statements be true?
Health Canada’s official reply was to claim “no conflict between the two statements.”
The agency insists that while product monographs reflect only manufacturer-submitted data, Health Canada and PHAC perform their own “rigorous scientific reviews” drawing from “a broader range of evidence,” including published studies and “emerging research.” They maintain that authorizations are issued only when benefits outweigh the risks.
That confidence doesn’t square with what officials said during the vaccine rollout. In June 2021, ahead of the rushed-to-market authorization for these shots for children, Health Canada’s Biologic and Radiopharmaceutical Drugs Directorate admitted in writing that their assessments were “based on a qualitative risk-benefit calculation” because “it would not be sufficiently accurate to quantitatively calculate risk” due to “limited understanding” of the virus.
Additional internal government communication confirms that the agency did not conduct a risk-benefit analysis and relied instead on conjecture for its authorization decisions.
In other words, decisions were based on subjective judgment — not measurable data.
That same correspondence parroted Pfizer’s early claim of “100% efficacy” in adolescents aged 12 to 15 — a figure that quickly collapsed once real-world breakthrough infections surged.
Even infectious disease specialists like Dr. Zain Chagla have since reflected on how the early months of vaccine rollout left the healthcare system “traumatized,” as post-vaccine infections and hospitalizations spiked through early 2021.
Dr. @zchagla says the medical profession was “traumatized by what happened in January, February & March 2021,”
— Tamara Ugolini 🇨🇦 (@TamaraUgo) September 26, 2022
Those were first 3 months post the miraculous vaccine roll out in Canada
What happened?pic.twitter.com/a1d247IWVT
Despite that history and more robust data, Health Canada now cites a 2022 National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) statement supporting vaccination in pregnancy, saying data is “continuously updated” in the Canadian Immunization Guide.
Yet when asked who actually wrote and approved those statements, Health Canada’s “commitment to transparency” abruptly ends.
Instead of naming specific experts, the agency replied that content is prepared by “Agency staff, including medical and scientific experts,” and approved through “internal review and governance processes.”
The Public Health Agency of Canada issued nearly identical language, saying its materials are “prepared by scientific and medical subject matter experts” and “formally approved through departmental and ministerial processes.”
There are no names, and thus no accountability.
It’s the same pattern Canadians saw early in the pandemic, when politicians urged the public to “trust the experts” — but refused to identify who those experts were.
Only later did it emerge that many of those so-called experts were entangled in conflicts of interest and pandemic profiteering, leaving them susceptible to misinformation.
Which begs the question: if the science is sound and the experts credible, why hide them? Transparency should be the foundation of public trust, not its casualty.
When it’s revealed that NACI’s own chair, Dr. Shelley Deeks, received a $3.5-million “vaccine readiness” grant months before COVID-19 vaccines were even authorized, as researcher Deanna McLeod of Kaleidoscope Strategic pointed out, questions of bias and influence are crucial.
Speaking at the Toronto @Inquiry_Canada event, Deanna McLeod, Founder of independent medical research firm Kaleidoscope Strategic, discusses concerning conflicts of interest w those responsible for the approval of the novel COVID vaccines, like NACI chair Shelley Deeks pic.twitter.com/Ax5bOIRDxp
— Tamara Ugolini 🇨🇦 (@TamaraUgo) March 31, 2023
Pregnancy and reproductive health deserve the highest standard of evidence — not policy shaped by anonymous bureaucrats or pre-funded vaccine readiness campaigns.
If Canadians are expected to “trust the science,” Health Canada should start by showing who’s writing it.
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COMMENTS
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Benoît-François de Champlain commented 2025-11-12 16:43:39 -0500In French, we have a saying, namely an idiom: ‘’mentir comme on respire’‘. Literally, that would translate into English as ’to lie as one breathes’.
Well, it really means ‘lying through one’s teeth’. And that’s what the federal government of Canada especially has been doing on virtually every front for over ten years now.
So, in public health matters as well, under the current Liberals, the federal government and its agencies in their entirety are not only incompetent; they are actually malevolent towards us citizens. For that reason alone, they should all be given the sack and hauled to court for breaching the constitution and the people’s trust.
However, considering that the courts have been packed by these same Liberals with activist judges, I am not holding my breath. The whole judicial system would thus need to be purged and rebuilt from the ground up for this to happen first. -
Bruce Atchison commented 2025-11-11 19:36:27 -0500The Liberal-rot in the bureaucracy will thwart any investigation into this panic-demic.
